Nuggets from a Lover of LIFE

Clocks

Hunkering on the mantel of our electric fireplace, beneath my Dad’s collection of arrowheads found around Aztalan, Wisconsin in the 1930s, you will see an assortment of clocks. Every one registers a different time, and every one is correct two times a day.

In our fast pace culture, people are said to “live by the clock” (although today I think many live by their cell phones). But Joe and I are not fast lane people. Even during those decades when we had to frequently glance at a clock (an accurate one!), we were slow lane people.

For me, the clock that matters is not that attractive little timepiece on my wrist or bedside table. The clock that matters is God’s clock—His sun which He moves faithfully across the sky century after century, eon after eon, to delineate the seasons.

Science has shown how migrating birds respond to the increase and decrease of daylight around God’s seasonal clock.* Spring migrations move as the days grow longer. A migration may be halted temporarily by wintery weather, but the impetus to move is solar generated.

The birds do not dream of balmy breezes and lilac blooms; rather, they instinctively know when to move north and stake their mating territories in sync with accelerated daylight. Thus, spring theoretically begins for migrating birds when the sun says “GO”. This is in February around the Gulf of Mexico, Central America, or South America where our summer birds spend their winters.

I’m like the birds, in some ways. By mid January, more sunlight poured into our windows. Now, by mid February, I sit outdoors in a sheltered sunny spot. The sun grows higher and stronger every day, and in my heart it’s spring.

Much as I totally love those intoxicating balmy breezes and lilac blooms which come in May, I don’t need them to experience the turn of a season. Despite the probability of more snow storms, our February sunlight—rising ever higher as it moves north—is SPRING! I can always bundle my body against the cold, yet feel that searing warmth and strength of God’s sun on my face.

The entire progression of spring, beginning with increased daylight following the winter solstice, is exciting. Now we are having a thaw. More snow may come, and we can savor its fleeting beauty because we know that the sun will continue to move northward according to God’s law!

Soon we will hear the mourning dove’s “Whoo-whooo-whoo”, and the “cardinal’s “Cheer-cheer-cheer”, followed by the “Oka-reeeee!” of that evangelist, the redwing blackbird as he proclaims, “I am FREEEEE!”

Maple syrup days will come. Thawing days and freezing nights raise the sap in us as well as in a sugarbush! Then we’ll have a period, perhaps weeks, of cold rain—dreary to some, but tremendously exciting to me as the rain releases that fresh green fragrance from the earth.

It’s all about spring! “Cold and wet” are a huge part of spring in our land, and it’s wonderful! Balmy breezes and lilacs are a long way off, but never mind. I don’t need them at the moment, because I have the ever lengthening daylight. God’s clock never fails. God’s clock says “SPRING!”

*A fantastic resource of scientic info on bird migrations is found in THE SNOW GEESE, A Story of Home, by William Fiennes. I read this recently published book (2002) two or three times every year. The author weaves his touching personal story into a wealth of well-researched material on migrating birds.

NOTE: Now you see him, now you don’t. In the event that you visited this page recently and found Humphrey Bogart, and now are wondering where in the world he went, Humphrey has been moved to http://richesinglory.wordpress.com/ .